


The Stranger Unveiled

by lodessa



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Comfort, F/M, Reunions, Written during Season 8, post 8x03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 15:33:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18831529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa
Summary: Daenerys faces the afterlife.





	The Stranger Unveiled

Before her stood a red door, the one she remembered as a little girl. 

Daenerys stood before it and tried to remember how she had gotten here. Fire and blood and countless screams. She remembered the smoke burning her throat and lungs. 

_Fire cannot kill a dragon_ , she reminded herself.

And yet she was dead. She knew it now suddenly and with absolute certainty.

_So the Targaryen line ends_ , a voice that was not her own echoed in her mind. Yet she knew that was not true either.

_It doesn’t matter_ , she realized, _None of that matters anymore. Not here._

She stared at the door before her, knowing she was meant to open it and yet more afraid to open in than she had been of anything in years.

What would she find on the other side? Daenerys had never concerned herself with the mysteries of the dead, though she’d encountered dozens of different belief systems with their different punishments and rewards.

_Even if I believed in one, I would not know which of its fates would be mine._

She had tried to do something good, tried to make a difference. Yet she knew that even if the wheel were broken in places, it would be rebuilt. She knew she had made mistakes, as well, but such was the fate of anyone who was brave enough to make any choices at all.

_I don’t want to be alone._

Perhaps if she went through the door it might remedy that, and yet who might be on the other side worried her. Would it be Viserys, angry and demanding? Would it be Drogo, restless within stone walls? She shuddered to think of facing an army of the dead she had caused to become that way.

_Who do I want to be there?_

As if summoned by the thought, a shadow fell over the door from behind her. Daenerys turned to find a cloaked and hooded figure, and yet she found she was not afraid of the Stranger.

_It is his domain after all._

“Khaleesi,” he said and that voice transformed the barren landscape around them. 

Eagerly she reached up and pushed back the hood, the empty numbness leaving her all at once.

“My bear!” she exclaimed, tears welling up in her eyes.

“I am sorry,” he looked down at her, “I failed you.”

“Never when it truly mattered,” she told him, outstretching her arms to cradle his face in her hands. 

“But you are here,” he pointed out.

“Valar Morghulis,” she almost laughed, “We are here together. With you at my side, I do not fear death.”

“I thought I would have to wait longer. I hoped I would have to wait longer,” he sighed, and she felt warmed by the sentiment. 

It seemed impossible now to believe that she had ever weighed his shortcomings as heavier than the weight of his comfort and devotion. She had been someone else then, though, burdened, blinded, and spurred on by pride and destiny. 

“You saved me that day… well night. I saw the sun rise and the night king vanquished,” she reassured him, “But I was lost without you. I needed you.”

Collapsing in towards him, Daenerys let herself fall into his embrace as she had so often not done in life, closing her eyes for a moment as his arms enfolded her. 

“Others would have done as I did,” he murmured into her hair. “You have always had it in you to inspire devotion.”

“I learned how to inspire awe, but you carried me when I was weak and downtrodden. You chose me when I was nothing but a frightened girl at the mercy of everyone around me. Others might have served the Mother of Dragons and Breaker of Chains, but you turned your back on your own hopes, goals, and ambitions for me, when I was neither of those things.”

She looked back up into his face, wondering how many times she had looked upon it without truly seeing it.

“They didn’t deserve you and neither did I,” he glanced away towards the ground and she had to guide his face back to meet her gaze.

“I made mistakes. People died because of that, some because I intended them to and some without that being my intention.”

“As do all who have the power to influence the fates of others.”

“We never should have gone back to Westeros,” she told him, “But that is ended now and I am not sorry that it is so.”

“I thought that was the end, and yet here we stand on the precipice of something else.” he nodded towards the door behind them.

“Will you go with me?” she asked, suddenly fearing that this might be but an interlude of solace before she was once again left alone.

“If you will have me,” he swallowed, his hands suddenly tentative in their position at her shoulders.

“You and only you,” she told him. “In life I was l always looking forward towards conquest, in every form. Now I feel differently.”

She did. The spell of prophecy and promise was broken now. Her flame had burned out and in its place was something else. It felt as though she saw with new eyes.

“Is this a dream?” he asked her, one thumb reaching up to caress the back of her neck.

“If it is, then I do not wish to wake,” she replied, pulling his face down towards hers to press a kiss not against his forehead or cheek but now his lips.

She could feel his surprise, but his reaction wasn’t the violent passion of Drogo or the passive resignation of Jon Snow. He trembled at her kiss and then drew her closer, not roughly but gentle, strong, and certain, the way he had always reached for her and she had never reached back. Now she reached for him and found the something she’d been chasing ever onward for.

Daenerys had said more than once that she could never love Jorah the way he had wanted her to, but finally that felt like a lie. It had been a truth once, but she was not sure when it had stopped being. Perhaps when she had stopped having a destiny that needed to be propelled forward. 

“Whatever it is,” he promised her, a solemn vow against her parted lips, “I will be with you.”

She let go of his face after a second slow lingering kiss, and took one of his hands instead.

“Let us go then,” she nodded, “and see who was right.”  
Together, they pushed open the red door.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I have a lot of feelings. This just sort of started writing itself without me planning to do it. I expect it is one of many "canon did us dirty" inspired fics I will write in the face of this awful last season.


End file.
